Grape & Grain | Hong Kong wine expert Sarah Heller on the terrors of blind tastings

Blind tasting has always been one of the banes of my vinous existence. While some Master of Wine students and particularly Master Sommeliers (a totally separate undertaking with its own London-based HQ, the Court of Master Sommeliers) take to blind tasting like Chardonnay to oak barrels, I view it as a necessary evil.

Were I psychoanalytically inclined, I might trace this deep-seated distaste to my earliest blind tastings, delivered by somebody who is, inexplicably, still a good friend, despite his ongoing masochistic love of “blinding” me (but let us not proceed too far with the psychoanalysis).

On the first of these trials, I was served what I now know to be one of the nicest Saint-Aubins on the market. My challenge was that I had started out in wine working for an Italian “natural wine” importer, so unless faced with a skin-fermented white from Slovenia, I was at something of a loss. Chardonnay from a lesser-known Burgundy village might as well have hailed from Mars.

“How are you on Burgundy villages?” the friend asked, not yet aware of my 50km-wide blind spot.

“You know,” I said with a facial tic that must have been mistaken for humility.

We danced around the issue for another 20 minutes until I – under much duress – estimated a price point for the wine of HK$1,200. This after being told it was from Saint-Aubin, and thatit is not traditionally considered a great Burgundy village. For reference, Saint-Aubin from this producer (Pierre Yves Colin Morey) generally clocks in at around HK$375.

It dawned on him at this stage that he'd thrown in his lot with a crass bungler, and the friend diplomatically said only, “I didn't realise pricing in Hong Kong was so steep.”